In financial institutions such as banks, ATMs (Automated Teller Machines) installed at unattended stations such as a cash service floor or a convenience store may be vigorously employed to make transactions with customers. However, various kinds of procedures for loans, such as home loans, or various kinds of notices, such as address change notices, cannot be processed at the ATM or unattended station, and such transactions are instead performed between a customer and a bank clerk at a branch window of the bank, for example.
To provide services not offered by an ATM or unattended station in an unattended environment, a system having an ACM (Automated Contract/Consulting Machine) as a core has been proposed. This system allows transactions to be made, including a transaction of opening a composite ordinary account and issuing a bankbook rapidly, and a transaction of automatically accepting an application for a card loan or a credit card at a remote site. For example, a bi-directional video conference system is provided to enable the bank clerk (operator) at the remote site to deal with a question or a consultation, whereby the transaction process that conventionally could not be performed except by the direct reception can be made in the unattended environment.
In the system environment having an ACM (Automated Contract/Consulting Machine) as a core, a screen/data sharing technique between two remote sites employing Java, for example, has been employed. With these techniques, a customer who operates the ACM (Automated Contract/Consulting Machine) and the bank clerk can perform the process, while watching the screen in the same progress. Therefore, the customer can be given appropriate advice by the bank clerk if the customer is confused with the operation, or needs to refer to a selection screen for the commodity.
Upon a connection request for each transaction from the ACM (Automated Contract/Consulting Machine) settled at a business office or branch, for example, a ROT (Remote Operation Terminal) placed at a business center of the financial institution is connected. Generally, the number of ROTs (Remote Operation Terminals) is smaller than the number of ACMs (Automated Contract/Consulting Machines), and it is difficult to allocate all the requests from the ACMs (Automated Contract/Consulting Machines) to the ROTs (Remote Operation Terminals) at the same time.
Conventionally, only a message such as “Not connectable due to congestion at present” was returned to the ACM (Automated Contract/Consulting Machine), and a connection request with the ACM (Automated Contract/Consulting Machine) from the customer was simply refused. As a result, the financial institution lost a transaction with potential profit, causing a significant loss of opportunity.
At the conventional business office or branch counter, the customer stands in a line with a number ticket, and is called from the window in turn to make a transaction with the bank clerk. At this time, there is no problem if the transaction is done with a single item of business, but if there is any entry error or lack of a necessary document, of if it is necessary to fill in another form, or if a transaction is accepted only at another window, the customer must stand at the end of the line with a number ticket again. Even when the ACM (Automated Contract/Consulting Machine) is employed, in the above-mentioned cases, the customer is required to line up again at the end of a queue, resulting in a very long waiting time. Also, when the ACM (Automated Contract/Consulting Machine) is connected to the operator in charge of another transaction due to an operation error of the customer, it is necessary to newly connect to the operator in charge of correct transaction. In this case, the waiting time is longer, like lining up at the end of a queue, which is an unfavorable state for the customer.